A leading oil industry executive has warned that some platforms in the North Sea are �falling apart� and a potential drop in investment as a result of the collapse in crude prices could lead to serious accidents.

A leading oil industry executive has warned that some platforms in the North Sea are "falling apart" and a potential drop in investment as a result of the collapse in crude prices could lead to serious accidents.

Ayman Asfari, chief executive of Petrofac which owns North Sea fields and operates fields on behalf of other oil companies, said his company had seen facilities which were in need of urgent repair.

Petrofac employs 10,000 worldwide and lists safe and ethical working as fundamental to its business.

"The state of some of these assets that were built in the 1970s is really bad - they are falling apart," Mr Asfari told the Oil and Money Conference in London. "We've seen incidents where people have fallen through gratings."

Mr Asfari said the safety regulator had already told the industry it needed to do more on the integrity of facilities. However, the falling oil price could deter companies from increasing spending on improvements. The price of crude oil has dropped recently, from a peak of $147 a barrel in mid-July to just below $63 a barrel yesterday.

"What worries me is that we end up in a situation where budgets get curtailed and that means one thing - that there will be serious accidents around the corner," Mr Asfari said.

Mr Asfari's comments were made on the day that oil giant BP posted quarterly profits of around £6.4bn, its highest-ever earnings for a three-month period and 148% above the same period last year. His allegations were last night dismissed by Oil & Gas UK, the trade organisation which includes Petrofac in its membership, but Mr Asfari's comments were supported by Jake Molloy of the OILC offshore union.

He said: "I would reiterate every word and he is well positioned to make statements like that because his company has been the forerunner of taking over the operation of acquired assets and operating them on behalf of other companies.

Petrofac also manages the Northern Producer (Galley field), Montrose, Arbroath, Kittiwake, Hewett and Bacton terminal facilities and supports the operation of around 20 other fields in the North Sea for a number of clients.

"They have first-hand experience of some of the older assets and can talk confidently about the state of some of the older assets," said Mr Molloy.

However, Chris Allen, health, safety, social and environment director with Oil & Gas UK, said: "I completely disagree with Ayman Asfari's assessment, which ignores the fact that over the last three years, when the oil price was at or below today's level, industry has invested more than £3bn in keeping its assets safe and reliable.

"This year alone, industry is spending more than £1.5bn on asset integrity. Industry is working hard to meet the challenge of maintaining asset integrity for the future which now lies ahead of us.

" This is not an easy task but we are making good progress. We will not compromise on safety."

A year ago, the Health and Safety Executive published a damning report following a three-year investigation of almost 100 offshore installations which revealed that on nearly 60% of them the state of plant was below an acceptable level, and 16% were failing to comply with legislation.